


straight on till morning

by CagedSphinx



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Childhood Friends, Dream Bubble, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Long Distance Relationships, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Separations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-16 21:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CagedSphinx/pseuds/CagedSphinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't know why, but he smells like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i saw you in a dream and you came true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwoTonedJester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoTonedJester/gifts), [turntechGodtier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turntechGodtier/gifts).



Once upon a time, when you were very small, you had a dream. You dreamed of your forest, only it wasn't your forest - instead, it was one that looked like your forest, but for all the ropes and bridges amongst the trees. It was a wonderful place, to be sure, but there were no other trolls despite looking almost urban. In your dream, you wandered, you played...and you felt watched, but no matter how you searched for what spied on you, it was never more than a flash out of the corner of your eye. All you knew was that it was red, like a flamestone set in gold, and that you wanted nothing more than you wanted to catch it. You were always fond of colours, but from that point on, red would always be the one you favoured.

You stopped having the dream when you met Team Charge. After you and they and Vriska started FLARPing together, your dreams grew stranger, more relevant to the life you were living and the people who lived in it. You started to dream of golden towers and friendly plastic bug-looking folk in jovial pastel clothing. The red flash stayed, though, elusive as ever. It had even begun to show up more often, and once you could have sworn you saw it while campaigning, over your shoulder like a fairy guide, even though fairies couldn't possibly be real.

Then the incident happened, and you saw nothing at all ever again.

Instead, you tasted and smelled, and just as you thought, red remained the best of colours. There were so many different kinds, and you loved them all, but none of them were quite the same red as the one in your dream. You thought for a while, over the course of SGRUB, that perhaps Karkat was the answer to the riddle, but it didn't take you long after learning his secret that his shade wasn't quite the right flavour.

As the game continued and your abilities as a Seer developed, you started to catch whiffs of it here and there, whether waking or sleeping; not the bright cinnamon heat Karkat left on the back of your tongue nor the dusty strawberry of your chalk, but something sweeter, something you couldn't quite place. Not yet, anyway. Your newfound powers granted you patience - surely, with time, you would find the answer.

That would turn out to be truer than you expected - you met Time not long after the game had ended, when you were stranded on the meteor. Dave Strider became your very favourite shade of red, a decadent cherry cordial: the answer to a question you hadn't thought to ask before, but not the question you first wanted answered. Even as the two of you grew closer, the first riddle still plagued you, more than ever without SGRUB to distract you; between conversations, you had taken to wandering the meteor, and it was there you finally found what you'd been searching for.

At first you're so lost in your own thoughts that you think it's just Tavros, asleep on the floor, but something else catches your nose. You face him on your right, taking a deeper breath, smelling the peanut butter and gunmetal that makes him...and something else. Your heart nearly stops in your chest when you finally identify it.

Apples.

The red from your dream was apples.

You turn just a little more to the right, opening your mouth as you inhale, taking every bit of the faint familiar scent, and for the first time in your life the red flash stays still, allowing your senses to paint you a flavourful picture. It's another troll, sort of - your bodily sense tells you only Tavros is there, but your Mind tells you otherwise. He is hazy, but his scent is comfortable and inviting, moreso than the more solid troll on the floor despite being the same shade, and even bearing the same sigil. Instead of peanut butter, this one smells of cinnamon, but not the same as Karkat's - warm and savory instead of sharp and hot, a perfect complement to his apple-red hair and clothes. You take in another breath just to be certain of the brown sugar sparkle of the half-troll's wings, spread out behind him like pages from the storybook he must have stepped out of.

You don't know why, but he smells like home. Not your forest, not your planet, but home as a concept, and you want to curl up in the middle of that smell forever. No wonder, you think as you step closer, no wonder Tavros clings to him so.

"Rufio?" The name passes your lips so quietly you barely hear it yourself.

He looks up at you and smiles as if he's been waiting for you to notice him.


	2. do you know what i wish?

You find it pretty funny that not long before, you told Tavros not to let anyone tell him Rufio wasn't real. You hadn't believed it at the time yourself, but here he was, in the ectoplasm, or whatever the heck brain phantoms are made from. Making sure not to wake the sleeping troll, you sit next to him, cross-legged like he is. He gives a fond look to Tavros and turns to face you; up close he's still a bit unclear, but you can almost feel him smiling.

"Hey, doll," you hear in the back of your head. His voice is rough and light at the same time, seeming to trail off at the end of each sentence, like sand running through your fingertips. "Took you long enough."

"It's been you the whole time, hasn't it," you reply, not in accusation but in wonder. "In the forest city with all the bridges."

He nods, seeming like he's studying you as much as you're studying him. "Yeah. That's my place. You were the first face I'd seen in a pretty long time, doll. Hope it's okay I stuck around." He reaches up to scratch the base of his horn, sheepish for a bull, and you grin, finding it endearing.

"You could have said something earlier, you know," you say, raising a brow and leaning forward, sniffing to get more detail. He backs up slightly at the invasion of space, but seems okay with it after a moment, lifting his shoulder in a shrug.

"I didn't think you could see me, I guess. You always seemed like you were looking, but..." He seems perplexed when you giggle at him.

"Well, you're right on that front." You shuffle your cane back into your sylladex and scoot your glasses off your eyes, perching them atop your head. Despite your smile, your chest aches a little to catch his change in expression, and you tip your shades back down again. "Don't worry. And just think! If I could see, we probably wouldn't be talking right now."

He doesn't seem convinced, looking down at Tavros again, who is still dreaming. "I dunno, doll... This little dude seems to see me just fine, and he's not...y'know, blind or anything." A normal enough statement to your ears, but for some reason it startles him after a moment and he looks around as if waiting for someone else to pop up, prompting your most confused of faces. It is enough to distract him, apparently, since he leans in closer to look at your face. "Hey, how are you doin' that with your mouth...?"

 

* * *

 

You do not sense him when you find Tavros's corpse.

It's different from the other times; he would always be more vibrant at the bottom of the stairs, cheering your peanutty buddy back up to his robotic feet. Tavros didn't know you knew the truth, but you knew he could hear Rufioh even clearer than you could. Now both of them are gone.

You would grieve more heavily if you weren't already cried out from watching someone else you care about die on your viewport. You're positive you know who's responsible for this, but you conduct a thorough investigation nonetheless. Due diligence makes quite an excellent distraction, after all.

Kissing him is still really gross, though. Chocolate never does taste the same after that.

 

* * *

 

You're grateful, really, for all the shenanigans that ol' peanut butter cup's desecration led to, even if you aren't so glad to have him gone. They kept you busy. Between hunting Vriska and the showdown with Gamzee and losing Sollux and gaining Dave when you arrived at the Green Sun, you had absolutely no time whatsoever to think about anything but what was happening at the moment it was happening. No worries on the past, maybe a few for the future, but you didn't dwell. That worked for you.

A week since then, in relative time, and now it's quiet.

You play with Dave as much as you can, talk to Rose or Karkat or Kanaya when you can't, don't look for the bodies, don't think. As much as you can, you try not to think, but now that the danger's passed you haven't got much of a choice. Soon, it almost gets to be too much, and you set your chalk down and walk away mid-doodle. You climb all the stairs, all of them, and try to ignore the way your chest twists when you don't smell apple cinnamon at the bottom of each flight. You're not signed into Trollian so you don't have to taste the lack of blueberry bubble gum, even though your hands still reek of it in your dreams. Not even burning your FLARP outfit got rid of the stench.

The place you end up doesn't help matters very much, no matter how rigorously it's been scrubbed. No rainbow candy party here, no sir, just grey like biting a ceager and the infinite void. You met Dave here. You killed Vriska here. Lost Sollux and gained Aradia. Meetings and partings. Balance in all things. But it feels as if you've all lost so much more than you've gained. Karkat still isn't the same, jumping at shadows even after the long nap he couldn't hold off any longer; it didn't help that when he woke up Gamzee was gone. Good riddance, as far as you're concerned, but at the same time you find it unfair. You wonder, not for the first time, if the scales you're all on are rigged. You sit on the edge of the platform and sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, trying in vain to think of something else, and thank whatever powers for the footsteps you hear behind you.

You sniff lightly, and try to smile a little at the cherry that greets your nose as Dave sits down next to you, dangling his feet next to yours. It should make you feel better, having him finally be next to you after all this time, but right now he's just there. Somehow that makes you feel even worse, and you lean on the rail in front of you without even greeting him.

For now, he's silent, content to share the space with you, and you're grateful for it, even though you know it can't last. When he does speak, it's quiet, gentler than his usual brash clumsiness.

"You okay?"

It trips enough of a warning that you sit up, despite the simplicity of the phrase. You face him, partly for his benefit and partly so you can smell him better. He's farther and closer than you expected him to be, and his worry clings to him like rain. You can almost perceive the details of his face now. You want to tell him 'I'm fine', as would befit the past of least resistance, but the words stick in your throat. He knows you would be lying anyway. You shake your head.

He thinks for a moment and scoots closer, close enough that your hips touch. "I got an idea," he says, and you frown at him in confusion. "It might make you feel better." You feel your face heat up as he leans in; if he notices he doesn't say. Instead he reaches up to tap his cheek. "C'mon. You know you want to."

You've never been so confused. Was he coming on to you? You certainly don't object, but you thought you were doing a better job at hiding your feelings on that particular matter. "Dave, this is awfully sudden. And awkward."

"Nah, I figure we've waited long enough," he replies. "So go on, go ahead."

"Go ahead and...?"

Even with the licorice coils on his face you can smell him roll his eyes, as if he was being the most obvious person in the universe. "Lick my face, you giant tool. I know you want to. Kinda surprised you've held off so long, to be honest. Been like, what, a whole week?"

For a moment, you can't even believe this guy. You stare, and then something sparks in your belly, bubbling its way up and out in a chuckle that grows into a guffaw that becomes full blown laughter - real laughter, not your usual snide cackle, and it feels wonderful. When the laughter's done with you, he's smiling at you in some oddly tangible way, a way you probably shouldn't be able to detect but somehow do, the same way you've always been able to. Before he can pull away, you close the distance between you and gently kiss his proffered cheek.

As predicted, he turns candy red and you smile, although it falters when he remains still. He stares at you for a moment, and something like stone creeps into his scent - determination maybe? You're still giddy from the last few moments. He reaches forward and carefully takes off your glasses; you sit still and let him, despite the flutterbugs in your stomach. You draw in a shaky breath as he removes his shades, opening his eyes - you are glad you inhaled because the red of them is breathtaking - and leans in again, tilting his head to kiss you on the lips.

He tastes soft and sweet on the surface, like a peach ripened to perfection; there's an edge there, too, acidic trepidation and maybe a touch of fear, but both those fade to bright adoration as you gladly return his kiss as best you can. For that moment, the world shrinks, focuses until everything is so clear you'd swear you could see again; he breaks away briefly to turn himself towards you, and you catch a whiff of bright green apple behind you before he kisses you again, stronger this time. You grin into it, over the moons, and taste

_him lying by his quest bed with his throat slit, cherry and apple and so very dead and it's your fault_

You jerk away with a sharp cry, slapping a hand over your mouth as you try to banish the image, try to get the coppery flavour off your tongue. He touches his own where it must have caught on your teeth - bemused, not angry, but you remain shaken. "Wow, damn, those are sharp," he says, but changes when he sees you, back to childlike and unsure. "Shit. Shit, shit, it's okay, T-Z, it's just a scratch--"

_just a scratch_

Your breath quickens, taking in more and more of his cherry outfit, too much of him outside the same as inside, and it hits you like a rogue meteor that he had to die to get that sigil on his chest, had to die to get to where he is.

He had to die to get to you.

You screw your eyes shut tight, even knowing it's ineffectual, trying to block it out, but it won't go away - the Time symbol like a wound blown straight through him, and the cherry makes you sick like the bubblegum gash you put in your sister. Like the raspberry crater you found in the princess, or Kanaya's spearmint belly. Like huge puddles of not-chocolate and the terrible thought that you'll never smell apples and cinnamon again. A sob rips your chest open along with theirs, and the grief you'd tried so hard to keep leashed cascades out until you can barely smell anymore.

You grope for the red splotch in front of you, your hand tightening in the fabric of his shirt, and feel strong wiry arms around you not a breath later, hear him apologize, beg you not to cry, but you can't seem to stop now that you've begun. You bury your face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the burning red of him as you sob and hold him tighter than you've held any other thing before. It doesn't help as much as you hoped it would. He is not the answer to this question.

He is your favourite shade of crimson, that much you know, but you can't help but think that while a cherry is red all the way through, only an apple is pale underneath.


End file.
